On Monday, March 13th, a vandal broke into the Islamic Center of Tucson(ICT), located in Arizona, he desecrated several copies of Quran by ripping out the pages and scattering the holy book around the mosque.
Security footage caught the vandal breaking into the mosque in the early hours of Monday morning at approximately, 3:30am. The man entered the prayer hall and tore up several copies of the Quran and threw them around the mosque, before fleeing the scene.
Nothing was stolen from the mosque and no one was hurt, the officials believe the only intent of the vandal was to damage the center's religious property.
The Tucson Police Department were contacted and are pleading to the local community to aid in providing information on the suspect.
In a Facebook post the mosque wrote, "The ICT has been a part of the Tucson community since the late 1980’s and since then, the Tucson community has been kind, welcoming, and supportive."
CAIR-AZ Executive Director Imraan Siddiqi, said in press release, “We urge local, state and federal law enforcement authorities to investigate this incident as a possible hate crime and for religious and political leaders to speak out against the growing Islamophobia in our state and nation that results in such acts of bigotry,”.
The Tucson Police are currently not investigating the incident as a Hate crime as they want to interview the suspect when caught.